Swimming Lessons
by WrittenSword
Summary: A short one-shot. Andy is teaching Miranda how to swim.


**A/N: **_Written for the ficathon at the DWP community._

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><p><strong>Swimming Lessons<br>**_by writtensword_

"Trust me, I won't let you drown. I promise."

Andrea's big doe eyes glowed with kindness and reassurance.

"Of course you won't let me drown, Andrea. Don't be ridiculous," Miranda sniffed and averted her gaze from her young lover to look out over the seemingly endless expanse of deep blue below them.

"Then get into the pool."

The water felt really quite pleasant against her feet and ankles, and she lazily flexed her toes against the coolness. The terrace of their private, Greek villa was shielded from prying eyes by thick, white clay walls, the azure of the pool almost seamlessly blending into the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean Sea, many feet below. What better place than this, to use as inspiration and overcome such silly anxieties?

She took a deep breath.

"Alright, alright. You just need to understand, Andrea," she looked back down at the brunette, "that irrational fears have power over even the strongest people. I hope you don't expect a miracle."

Her rigid grip carefully loosening from the mosaic rim, she tensed her biceps and hesitantly lowered herself into the pristine water. When she felt the tender licks of the surface move just above the level of her navel, she experienced a brief flutter of panic, but before she could pull herself up and into safety again, Andrea's hands had found her hips, firmly holding her in place.

"Breathe, Miranda."

Andrea looked at her warmly, and those beautiful eyes helped mute the terror in her chest that usually threatened to overwhelm her as soon as her upper body came anywhere near being submerged.

"Extend your legs. You can stand up."

Miranda's grip on the pool edge tightening instinctively, but Andrea moved her thumbs, soothingly rubbing over the sides of Miranda's belly.

"It's okay. Look at me, my feet are on the floor. It's really not that deep."

Tearing her eyes away from those brown orbs that were like a life-line, Miranda lowered her gaze and let it travel over Andrea's chest. The water level only reached to the other woman's waist, leaving the tiny beads lining her cerulean bikini top to sparkle teasingly in the afternoon sun. The enticing way the flimsy piece of fabric cradled Andrea's full breasts had everything to do with why Miranda had agreed to this private swimming lesson to begin with.

"Let go of the edge, Miranda." Andrea instructed with a gentle squeeze to her hips.

"No."

Miranda felt ridiculous, but there was nothing she could do. The concept of swimming terrified her. She was a woman of high intelligence, conscious of the fact that she was not in any danger, and obviously she knew that the bottom of the pool was a mere few inches from her toes. Yet the irrational fear made her recoil, and she pulled up her knees and clung to the tiles behind her.

For a second she worried that Andrea would scold her, or make fun of how pathetically she was behaving, but when she looked back into those comforting, chocolate eyes, her lover simply smiled and stepped closer.

"I've got you."

Sun-warmed arms curled around her back, and Andrea fully embraced her, pulling their bodies flush together and eliciting shivers in both of them. Letting go of the edge was suddenly incredibly easy, Miranda's arms quickly locking around Andrea's neck, the crooks of her elbows resting on her lover's shoulders.

"There, that wasn't too hard, was it?" Andrea beamed up at her, and Miranda had to smirk in return. Things were certainly going to get interesting if the younger woman would take this particular approach. She opened her legs and wrapped them tightly around her lover's waist, crossing her ankles behind her back.

"Oh, but that wasn't the deal, Miranda."

"What?" Miranda feigned innocence and sweetly stroked across the nape of Andrea's neck. "I let go, did I not?"

Andrea laughed and then planted a small kiss on the dip between Miranda's collar bones. Her hands moved down from Miranda's back and cupped the older woman's butt.

"If you want go play it like that," she nipped teasingly at Miranda's shoulder, "I'm all game."

Slowly, the hands on her backside began to caress her flesh, fingertips occasional brushing just under the edge of her bikini bottom, before retreating and stroking over the sides of her thighs. Andrea's lips worshipped Miranda's throat, that cheeky tongue darting out here and there, leaving trails of fire in its wake.

Miranda hummed blissfully and barely noticed when Andrea ever so slowly sank lower into the water, pulling her along. The tightness in Miranda's chest in reaction to the wetness rising up to around her breasts was eased by the hot mouth on her skin and the firm grip of eager fingers on her ass.

The tiny electric current of panic at the sensation of water touching her shoulder blades transformed into a soft moan when Andrea tenderly licked over her bottom lip. Her lover's tongue met her own, and Miranda allowed herself to slide lower when they kissed deeply.

They were submerged up to their shoulders, and a small voice in the back of Miranda's head kept yelling at her reflexes to kick in and to get out of the water. The overwhelming majority of her thoughts, though, were only focused on one thing: Andrea, and how her hands wandered over her body, how her tongue stroked roughly against her own, and how their hips had somehow found their familiar, sensual rhythm against one another.

Suddenly Andrea gripped Miranda's thighs, and she pried the legs apart and away from herself. She stepped backward and slipped from her grasp so quickly that Miranda didn't have time to tighten her hold, and with a purely instinctual movement, Miranda automatically pushed down her knees, the balls of her feet colliding painfully with the tiles of the pool floor, propelling her up and past the surface in a noisy splash.

"Andrea!"

Her lover's eyes widened for a second, but then her face began to shine with the most radiant of smiles.

"Miranda, you did it! You're standing all on your own!"

She tried to glower at her lover, her anger generally never failing to drill holes into people through the sheer power of her gazes, but as she became aware of the water hugging her abdomen, and her feet firmly planted on the ground below, she realised that she wasn't panicking. She stood waist-deep in a pool, without holding on to anything, and she wasn't hyperventilating.

Andrea clasped her hands together in delight and kept smiling at her. That look, above anything, was what encouraged Miranda to slowly bend her knees and lower herself again. Inch by inch, she allowed the water to crawl back over her skin until she was down to her neck. The pressure against her lungs was still slightly unpleasant, the imagined sensation of suffocation a phantom, faintly ghosting through her mind, but she remained calm, and simply gazed back at her lover.

She knew she should be angry. She didn't like it when people tricked her. But Andrea seemed to always know exactly when to push her just enough to help her in situations which she had long ago given up on.

"Thank you."

Andrea nodded and slowly moved further back until she had reached the outer edge of the pool. Her pale skin shone golden in the sun, drops of water hanging from her eye lashes and earlobes like the finest Swarowski crystals, and the backdrop of sea and sky, a meeting of the deepest of blues behind her, made her appear like a Greek goddess, luring Miranda closer with her gentle aura and incomparable beauty.

"Come here," Andrea's tone was husky, but Miranda's mind was not yet dazed enough.

There were at least ten feet between them, and crossing that distance by wading through the centre of the pool, toward the bit of wall that had nothing but a drop of several hundred feet behind it, was completely out of the question for Miranda. If she panicked over there, she'd be too far away from a means of escape.

She stood, water running down her shoulders and back as her muscles froze.

"No."

"Miranda, you're doing great. You can definitely do this." Andrea leaned back and rested her elbows on the tiled wall behind her. Luckily, vertigo was not one of Miranda's irrational fears, but she still worried about her lover resting so close to such high drop-off.

"Andrea, please come back."

Andrea just smirked and reached for the front closure of her bikini top. Three years ago, when Miranda had first met her, she could have never imagined the opinionated and naive, young woman to one day have such a powerful, seductive hold on her. Now, however, as she watched how the swim wear fabric unfolded and released her lover's ample breasts, all thoughts of the water and of drowning fled from her mind.

Before fear could reign her back in, Miranda pushed off the floor and reached forward. She was familiar with the motions of swimming, having gone over them in her head many times, ever since she had been a child and had tried to break through her frustrating anxiety at being submerged. Water splashed to all sides as she pedalled forward in clumsy, unpracticed strokes, and her hair was becoming drenched at the back of her neck.

Miranda didn't care, though, because Andrea's breasts were bobbing up and down with the waves she created, like two buoys, calling to her like a safe haven. Within seconds she arrived in front of her lover, where she stilled her movements and lowered her feet back to the floor. Her heart beat wildly and the adrenaline and sudden exertion left her gasping for air.

Andrea's eyes were shiny, so much love and adoration threatening to spill over in form of tears, and soon Miranda found herself locked in a tight embrace, Andrea's bare breasts pushing deliciously against her body. Her lover's lips pressed sweetly just below her jaw and Miranda tightened her hold.

"I swam," she whispered, still hesitant to believe it.

"Yes, you did," Andrea mumbled against her throat with a grin. "It seems, all you needed was the right motivation."

The playfulness helped Miranda shake off the surreal feeling, and a sudden contentment flooded her belly. She had really done it, and in hindsight she puzzled over what had made the task appear so daunting in the first place. Miranda smiled into her lover's hair, inhaling the scent of summer on Andrea's wet skin.

"That was evil," she murmured as gentle fingers caressed her back.

"Yes. But it worked, didn't it?"

Miranda chuckled.

"Yes, it did."

And still buzzing with adrenaline, she picked her up and pressed her back against the edge of the pool, pinning her lover firmly against the tiles.

"That doesn't mean, though, that you don't still deserve some form of punishment," she purred, and then quickly used her lips to cover Andrea's giddy squeak of surprise. The remainder of their vacation would definitely need to include a lot more lessons in the pool, and Miranda was sure that by the time they would have to leave Greece, she'd be an excellent swimmer.

_The End_


End file.
